(9 of 9)
"I'm no hero, but . . . if these people aren't stopped here on their own ground, we will have to share the thing which so many have died to prevent their loved ones from sharing—the sight of death in our own backyards; of women and children being victims of these people. I went on the warpath for the right to do my bit to keep our people free and proud and now I'm shackled to a useless job.
"I ask you, my mother, to free me so I can once again be free to help my boys. They placed their faith in me and . . . whenever I led I brought them all back and now someone else leads them and I know they need me. Maybe in a sense I need them—my dirty, stinking and loyal platoon.
"Once I cried before you when I thought I'd lost someone whom I loved very dearly, and once again I did cry when I was told I must leave my men. So, I ask of you the one thing your heart does not want to do—release me to fight.
"I pace my room feeling useless, being no good to anyone. I'm no barracks-parade-ground marine—I'm a Cherokee Indian and I'm happiest being miserable with my men up in those mountains.
"I know you'll understand and that your blessings will go with me into whatever the future holds in store for us . . ."
Sergeant Ward was sent back to Korea and his dirty, stinking and loyal platoon. His mother said: "When men in our tribe say something, they mean it."
Not all of the U.S. fightingmen are as brave as Sergeant Ward. Very few of them can say what they mean as fervidly as he. But most of them know what they are fighting against—"The sight of death in our own backyards; of women and children being victims of these people."
*Scene of the infamous massacre of U.S. prisoners by North Korean troops (TIME; Aug. 29).
*On their own or their parents' request, sole surviving sons serving in any branch of the U.S. Armed Forces may be assigned duty outside the combat zone, if another son or daughter in the family has been killed as a result of the "hazards" of service since 1940.